The short version
- No pet travels in the removals van. Not in a carrier, not in the cab, not for a short hop. Every animal goes in a car with a person.
- Crews cannot take an animal out of a room, catch a loose cat, or dismantle a hutch or vivarium with anything living in it.
- Aquariums and vivariums travel completely empty, or they do not travel.
- Removals insurance covers goods, not animals. Nothing on the policy applies to a pet.
- In a rented flat, the landlord’s written consent is currently needed in Scotland before keeping an animal.
- Title deeds on tenement flats sometimes restrict animals, and that binds owners as well as tenants.
Most pet advice tells you what to do. This one covers what is not available to you, because the limits are where the surprises are, and every one of them is easier to plan around than to discover at half past eight on the morning of your date of entry.
The van is not an option, and there is no version where it is
A loaded removals vehicle is dark, loud, unventilated in the way a living animal requires, and stacked with things that shift. No reputable firm will carry an animal in it, and removals contracts exclude livestock and pets outright. This holds for a ten-minute move across the Southside just as much as a journey to Aberdeen.
The question comes up more than you might think, usually phrased as whether the cat could go in her carrier just in the front, or whether the hutch could travel with the rabbit still in it because she is calmer in there.
The answers are no and no. The cab is not set up for an animal either, and a crew driving a heavy vehicle cannot supervise one. A hutch with a rabbit inside is a container full of loose bedding and a frightened animal being lifted, tilted and slid, which is unsafe for the rabbit and for whoever is carrying it.
What this means practically is that pet transport is a job you are doing yourself, in your own car, and it needs planning as its own task rather than assumed into the removals booking.
What a crew will not do with an animal in the house
Crews will work around a closed door all day without complaint. What they will not do is handle your animal, because a stressed pet is unpredictable and nobody wants a bite or an escape on their hands.
They will not move a pet between rooms, however calm it seems. If the room the cat is in needs clearing, somebody in the household moves the cat.
They will not catch a loose animal. If a cat gets out during loading, work stops and everybody helps look, but nobody is going to grab a frightened animal.
They will not dismantle occupied housing. Hutches, runs, cages and vivariums come apart empty. The animal is out and secure first.
They will not take responsibility for doors. The front door is open for hours on a moving day, and a crew carrying a wardrobe cannot also be watching for a cat at ankle height. That job belongs to a named person in the household, decided the night before.
Tanks and vivariums: empty or not at all
A glass aquarium or vivarium must be completely empty before it is lifted. Water and substrate flex the base, and seams fail under that stress, sometimes not on the day but weeks later when the tank is full again in your new living room.
Empty means genuinely empty: no water, no gravel, no rocks, no hides, no ornaments. Even a small amount of substrate sliding to one end during a lift puts uneven load on the glass.
The fish and the filter media are your responsibility and they travel with you. Keep the media wet in original tank water for the whole journey, because the bacteria living in it are what keep the tank habitable, and they die within hours of drying out.
Tell us about a tank at quote stage. Large aquariums are heavy, fragile and need positioning first at the new address rather than last, which changes the order the van is loaded in. That is straightforward to plan and awkward to improvise.
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What insurance does not cover
Removals cover applies to goods in transit. Animals are not goods and are not covered by any part of it, including where a pet is injured on the day or escapes during loading. That is a matter for your own pet insurance, if you hold it.
People occasionally assume there is some blanket protection operating on a moving day. There is not, and it is better to know that in advance than to raise it afterwards.
Two related points. Tell your pet insurer you are moving, because premiums are frequently linked to postcode and a mismatched address can complicate a claim at the worst moment. And check whether your policy has any waiting period attached to a change of circumstances.
Damage caused by a pet is also worth a thought. An animal that scratches a floor or chews a skirting board in a property you have just bought is your problem, and in a rented flat it is likely to come out of the deposit.
What the lease or the deeds might say
In Scotland the model private residential tenancy currently requires the landlord’s written consent before a tenant keeps an animal. New rights are coming under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025, but those provisions are not yet in force, so consent still needs securing rather than assuming.
England and Wales moved to a right-to-request arrangement earlier in 2026, which is why general UK advice may not describe the Scottish position correctly. Anyone reading a national guide should check the Scottish position separately.
Owners are not automatically clear either. Title deeds on tenement flats sometimes contain restrictions on keeping animals, and those burden the property rather than the person, so they apply to you as an owner. If you are buying a flat and have a pet, ask your solicitor to check while the titles are being examined. It is a quick question and an unpleasant surprise if left.
Where consent is needed, get it in writing and keep the copy. A verbal agreement with a letting agent is worth very little when the agent has changed.
Tenements, closes and back greens
Flat living changes what containment means. A close is a shared stairwell with a street door other people open constantly, and a back green is usually communal rather than enclosed, so neither functions as a safe boundary for an animal.
The close is the escape route. A cat through the flat door has several floors of stairwell and a street door that opens regularly. On moving day, when your own door is propped open, this is the single biggest containment risk in a tenement and the strongest argument for a shut room or a cattery.
A back green is not a garden. Shared drying greens are usually accessible from several closes and often from a lane. Letting a cat out into one is much closer to letting it out onto the street, and it is worth understanding that before planning a first outdoor trip rather than after.
Bin stores and back courts catch animals out. Cats get shut into bin stores, sheds and cellars, and it happens most often in the first weeks somewhere new. If a cat goes missing, these are the first places to ask neighbours to open.
Factors and neighbours have a say. Common areas are governed by the deed of conditions, and disputes about animals in shared space are handled through the factor. Introducing yourself early is more useful than it sounds.
More on the practicalities of arriving is in our guide to what to do when you move into a new house.
The microchip position in Scotland, which is not what you may have read
Dogs must be microchipped across the whole UK, and the keeper is legally required to keep the registered details current, including after a change of address. Compulsory cat microchipping applies in England and not in Scotland, so there is no equivalent legal duty here for cats.
A great deal of online advice states flatly that cat microchipping is the law in the UK. It is the law in England. A Scottish cat owner reading that is being told something inaccurate about their own obligations.
None of which is an argument against doing it. A chipped cat with a current address is the main mechanism by which lost cats get home, and the fortnight after a move is exactly when cats go missing. Update the record before you move rather than after, because that is the window where an old address does the most damage.
For dogs there is a separate requirement that the collar tag shows the owner’s name and address in a public place, so the tag needs replacing too. That one is easy to overlook because the chip feels like it covers everything.
What you cannot fix on the day itself
Several pet jobs have lead times attached, and none of them can be sorted on the morning of the move. Boarding places, vaccination records, repeat prescriptions and vet registrations all sit in this category.
Boarding cannot be booked at short notice. Catteries and kennels fill for month-end dates first, because that is when most entry dates cluster. Ringing round on the day is not a plan.
Vaccination requirements have their own timetable. Most boarding places require vaccinations completed a set period before arrival rather than immediately beforehand, which quietly turns a booking into a vet appointment weeks earlier.
Repeat medication is not issued on demand. Vets need notice, and a gap in medication during the fortnight an animal is already unsettled is the wrong time to discover the practice needs three working days.
Records take time to transfer. Registering with a practice near the new address is quick, but moving the animal’s history across is not instant and is worth starting well before you need it.
Exotics vets are thin on the ground. Not every practice sees rabbits, birds or reptiles, so if you have one of those, find out where the nearest suitable vet is before you arrive rather than at the point something is wrong.
What you cannot control, and how to plan around it
A Scottish date of entry is fixed weeks ahead, which is a real advantage, but the hour keys arrive is not. That gap matters more with an animal than without one.
Do not plan for the pet to sit in a car while you wait for settlement. A parked car heats up quickly even in mild Glasgow weather, small animals overheat faster than people expect, and an animal left alone in a stationary vehicle is a genuine risk rather than a discomfort.
The workable answer is that the pet stays somewhere secure, with someone, until the keys are actually in hand. A cattery, a friend’s house, or a person waiting elsewhere with the animal who you ring once you are in. Collecting the pet after the house is open is a far better plan than arriving with it and hoping.
The other thing outside your control is how long unloading takes. Doors stay open, crews come and go, and that is exactly the environment a newly arrived cat should not be released into. Set up one room, put the animal in it, and open the rest of the house to them once the van has gone.
Tell us what you have and which rooms need leaving alone, and we will plan the load around it.
Get a quoteThings people assume are not allowed, but are
The limits run in both directions, and a few things get needlessly worried about.
Empty hutches, runs, cages and aviaries travel fine. They are awkward rather than excluded. Flag anything large so the right crew turns up.
Litter trays, bedding and pet furniture are ordinary goods. Move the bedding unwashed, whatever your instincts say, because scent is what an animal uses to orient itself somewhere unfamiliar.
Opened bags of pet food are usually fine, provided they are sealed properly. It is dry goods rather than anything hazardous.
Garden ponds are a different matter. Pond fish are movable but the job is closer to an aquarium move than a removals task, and it needs planning with an aquatics specialist rather than a crew.
The general principle is that exclusions exist for hazard, legality and welfare. Anything that is merely bulky or awkward is a planning conversation, not a refusal.
How Glasgow Moving works around this
What we need is information, early. Which animals, which room stays shut, whether a tank needs the power left on until the last moment, whether there is a hutch in the back court the crew should keep clear of.
With that, the day is planned properly: the pet room gets cleared first and then left alone, large tanks and vivariums are loaded to come off first, and nobody props a door open without knowing why it matters.
Our packing service helps in a way that is worth spelling out. A house packed in two days rather than spread across a month gives an animal far less time to register that something is wrong, and compressed disruption is genuinely kinder than drawn-out disruption. House removals cover the move itself and storage covers a gap between dates.
Questions about pets and what is permitted
Can my pet travel in the removals van?
No, under any circumstances, including in a carrier or in the cab. A loaded vehicle is dark, noisy and not ventilated for a living animal, and removals contracts exclude pets outright. Every animal travels in a car with a person.
Will the crew move my cat out of the room they need to clear?
No. Crews do not handle animals, because a stressed pet is unpredictable and the risk of a bite or an escape is real. Someone in the household moves the animal, and it is worth deciding who before the day starts.
Does removals insurance cover my pet?
No. That cover applies to goods in transit, and animals fall outside it entirely, including injury or escape on the day. Your own pet insurance is the relevant policy, and it is worth telling the insurer about the address change.
Can I move the fish tank with water still in it?
No. Water and substrate flex the base of a glass tank and the seams fail, sometimes weeks later rather than on the day. Empty it completely, keep the filter media wet in original tank water, and move the fish yourself in that same water.
Do I need permission to keep a pet in a rented flat in Scotland?
Currently yes. The model private residential tenancy requires the landlord’s written consent before keeping an animal. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 will introduce a right to request that cannot be unreasonably refused, but those provisions are not yet in force.
Is cat microchipping the law in Scotland?
Not at present. The compulsory scheme covers England, so a great deal of UK-wide advice is inaccurate for Scottish owners. Dogs are a different matter and must be chipped with details kept current across the UK. Updating a chipped cat’s record before a move is still strongly advisable.
Can a cat use the back green once we have settled?
Treat a shared back green as street access rather than a garden, since it is usually reachable from several closes and often from a lane. That changes the calculation on when and whether to let a cat out, and it is worth knowing before the first attempt.
